How to Protect Online Financial Transactions

Internet commerce is growing by leaps and bounds--but predators are lurking online, seeking to use your personal financial information to rob you electronically. Here's how to reduce the chances that you'll be a victim.

Things You'll Need

• Internet access

Instructions

1. Make sure that your web browser is the latest version available. Also, look for a green address bar that appears when extensive ID checks are used.

2. Carefully look over the privacy policy of any website and make absolutely certain that it will NOT share any of your information under any circumstances.

3. Before entering ANY credit card or bank information, make certain the URL on the page changes to "httpS." The "S" stands for secure, which means that the information will automatically be encrypted to protect from hackers.

4. Look for a little padlock icon next to the status bar or URL, which denotes a Secure Sockets Layer protocol. This symbol portends encrypted data to ensure privacy.

Tips & Warnings

• Beware of any website that has spelling or grammatical errors, or links that don't go anywhere. An occasional typo is one thing, but several errors on a page should set off warning bells. Chances are that the web copy was written by someone not proficient in English--for instance, someone in Nigeria.